Iraqis launch offensive on ISIS in Fallujah

Prime minister vows nation will take back city from 'strangers'

Iraqi pro-government forces advance toward Fallujah on Monday as part of a major assault to retake the city from the Islamic State.

Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE, Stringer

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces have begun an assault on Fallujah, a city that has been held by the Islamic State longer than any other in Iraq or Syria, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a televised speech on Monday.

"Today we will tear down the black flags of the strangers who have kidnapped this city," al-Abadi said, referring to the flags of the Islamic State that have been flying in Fallujah for more than two years, in a speech alongside military commanders just after midnight.

However, Iraqi forces did not begin entering the city on Monday but continued to fire mortar and artillery rounds at it, as they have for months. Officials said pro-government forces had taken some small districts on the outskirts of Fallujah, as well as a government building in Karma, a city to the northeast of Fallujah that has long been contested by the government and the Islamic State.

Al-Abadi and other Iraqi leaders have frequently made bold statements heralding new military offensives, only for the efforts to stall on the ground. But the new determination to assault Fallujah signaled a shift in tactics for the Iraqi government.

Starvation, shortages

For many months, army units and allied Shiite militias had focused on keeping Fallujah cut off and under siege rather than mounting any direct assault. Residents and human rights groups described a worsening problem with starvation and medicine shortages.

As fighting intensified around Fallujah in recent days, the United Nations said it had stockpiled supplies in Baghdad in the event of a new displacement crisis. But the United Nations said that only 80 families had been able to leave Fallujah recently and that some civilians had died trying.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain there and would be unable to leave even if they wanted to. The Islamic State most likely would shoot them on the way out, and militias on the outskirts of the city sometimes refuse to allow civilians to pass, human rights activists have warned.

Any ground battle to liberate Fallujah is likely to be long and bloody. It has often been called the "city of mosques," and it has long been a stronghold of Sunni extremism, serving as a kind of early home base for al-Qaida.

The U.S. military, led by Marines, fought two battles for the city in 2004, and the urban, house-to-house fighting was some of the toughest the U.S. military had faced since Vietnam.

ISIS entrenched

Fighters of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, have held the city since the beginning of 2014. They are believed to be deeply entrenched and likely to stay and fight, unlike in cities such as Tikrit and Ramadi, which they eventually fled as Iraqi security forces closed in.

Backed by U.S. and coalition airstrikes, Iraqi forces have made progress in liberating territory held by Islamic State, including Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, and other cities in the Euphrates River Valley.